School board rejects latops
By Hidalgo Alfreddssen
In a 5-2 vote, the Oxbow Area School District rejected a request to provide all students in the district with a free laptop.
Board member Ben Olsen, who led the charge against the proposal, said the main issue in rejecting was pornography.
“When I was a kid, pornography was a journey of discovery, and adventure,” said Olsen. “Me and the other board members felt that giving the kids free laptops made it way too easy to find porn.”
Board president Gina Hakarsson had offered an amendment to implement website filtering on the laptops. Olsen rejected the proposal, noting, “Any kid with an internet connection can bypass that crap in ten seconds.”
District supervisor Alfred Swenson offered a proposal for adding keyloggers, systems that would track what students typed, to the laptops.
Area parent Lisa Alreddssen objected to the keyloggers.
“Would you really want to read the sick crap that kids type all day long?” asked Alreddssen.
A visibly aroused Swenson replied, “No.”
Asked after the meeting why the issue was so important, board member Olsen told The Herald, “Finding my brothers titty mags was a revelation. If it weren’t for finding my porn, my mom would still worry I might be gay. Every kid has the right to go through that process. Which would you rather do? Scramble to hide a magazine, or click ‘Clear Recent History’? It’s a no brainer.”
Area students expressed exasperation at the board’s decision.
“These idiots do realize what we’re doing in the boiler room during study hall, right?” asked an eighth grader who asked repeatedly that his name not be kept anonymous. “A couple texts after lunch and that place looks like a [expletive] speakeasy.”
National Honors Society president Tammy Olafssen was less glib in her analysis. The Herald refuses to print her comment on journalistic grounds.
In other board meeting news, the school district approved a measure raising the tax millage 20 mills to cover the district’s disastrous short-term investments in area Indian casinos. A portion of the tax increase will also be used to pave the back parking lot where seniors park their cars. Senior car permit prices will go up $15 to $125 a year.
Supervisor Swenson noted he will try to help students who can’t afford the fee to “work it off”.
